Shattered
by DreamingSpiritBells
Summary: She lay quietly in her own pool of blood, beaten and broken. She couldn't even remember her own name, but she still held on to that face, the only thing she remembered. I think this is a oneshot, two-shot posibly... REVIEWWW
1. Chapter 1

**Shattered**

**By:**

**Ashley**

**P.S: I DO NOT own TDI, TDA, or TDWT, sadly T.T or the characters T.T I just own this story, and the idea of it xD**

_**Starting Point:**_

******(ok this is likeeee... in the woods kinda, if it's in one of the episodes I have no idea which one it is 0.o it starts with Courtney, semi third person pov/hers)**

She lays there quietly, broken, bleeding.

Courtney didn't know what she did to piss off Heather that much, she figured maybe it was because she'd won the challenge the other day, instead of her. Or maybe, because she finally admitted her feelings for Duncan and Heather'd over heard.

Either way, nothing would fix this now.

Courtney had only gone for a walk, trying to sort out her feelings after recieving a letter from her parents about how her lawyers had gotten the useage of her PDA approved. She knew it would make her an out-cast, well, more than she already was.

She hadn't even seen the men in ski masks, cloaked in darkness, they'd blent in to the forest easily, and caught her off guard.

They'd beaten her severely, to the point where she couldn't even remember her own name.

All she could think of was the pain, the nerve wracking pain that jolted her body like she was a live wire. She could barely breath, and her heart was thumping so... so slow... black dots began to form in the corners of her eyes. As if she could even see right now, something wet seemed to seep in around her eyes, her vision already blurry from the tears she'd shed as she begged them to stop.

They hadn't for what seemed like hours, it probably was.

Being so far out in the woods hadn't helped either, no one would hear her screams.

Finally, she succumbed to the darkness as she vaguely heard Heather's voice say one last thing,"Pay-back's a bitch."

_**Duncan's POV-ish:**_

He'd gone for a walk after dinner, clearing his head after another spat with Courtney.

Yet, he couldn't get her out of his mind.

He never could.

So as he strolled around the woods, carving sculls into some trees, other things in different trees, he thought about her.

At least, until he heard the noses he knew very well. They were the sound someone makes when kicking something, and punching...

He slowly approached the sound, whoever was doing it, he didn't want them to turn on him.

And when they were done and gone, his curriosity got the better of him and he made his way over cautiously.

What he saw hit him in the gut like a ton of bricks.

It was a person, but he barely made out that it was in fact a _person. _By the way they were laying, huddled, it was hard to make out if it was male or female.

He leaned down and listened for breathing patterns, and he found only faint ones. He listened for a heart beat, and again found it to be faint. Whoever it was, was going to die. And soon. He knew there was nothing to be done, so he got up and walked off a little ways, nature would take care of it.

But then he stopped.

What if it had been his Princess? He couldn't bear the thought.

What if this person had someone who loved them? They'd be devistated if they were just found here without help.

And that was enough for him to decide.

He went back to the... body, and picked it up as gently as he could, many bones were broken, he could feel them moving underneath his hands, it was enough to make his heart ache with sadness. When whoever it was groaned in pain, he stiffened and held perfectly still, until they went silent again.

He headed back towards camp, towards where Chef slept, and when he came into the light of the fire-pit he caught the site of... so much blood. It tore at him.

Finally, he got whoever it was to Chef, and when he saw it his eyes went wide, it only took a second for him to get Chris and to bolt the person over to the medical tent. Duncan sat and waited all night it seemed, until Chris forced him back to his cabin to get some rest, in the morning Chris said he'd try and figure out who it was.

So, Duncan was a bit more on edge by the time morning rolled around, especially when Chris called every-one to the fire-pit. Chris looked so somber, Duncan noted, and he saw everyone tense at the look, it wasn't like Chris to look that way.

Duncan didn't see Courtney, either, but he probably figured she was catching up on some beauty sleep.

Until, that is, Chris started talking.

"Campers, last night, while most of you were sleeping, a person was found beaten half to death out in the woods, Duncan brought said person back to camp, and we immediately set to treating them, we did everything we could, and this person was a fighter. They made it through the night, and when... when we finally got around to cleaning off their face...," Chris, strangely, had a few tears in his eyes.

"W-who was it?" Bridgette asked warily.

Chris had to force the answer out.

"It was... C-c-courtney."

It took a moment for that thought to process fully in Duncan's head.

But when it did, his world shattered.

**OMG I like... cried writing this story.**

**I got the idea from one of the books I read, in which I cried too cuz the main character like... went through that.**

**And I thought 'what would Duncan be like if this happened to Courtney?' sooo yea...**

**I might possibly write a chapter two for this, if I get enough reviews**

**and whoever does review gets a hug and some tissues and chocolate (tissues if you cried)**

**~bells**


	2. Chapter 2

_**Yay chapter two o.o**_

_**finally, jeez x.x, sorry it took so long D:**_

_**anyways, thanks to everyone who reviewed!**_

_***gives whoever reviewed a hug and some tissues***_

_**Enjoy!~~**_

_**~bells**_

_**Courtney's POV-ish:**_

She didn't remember dying.

**(I got this part from a book called 'Faith of the Fallen, I do not own that, but if you know it, it's the very beginning of it) **With an obscure sense of apprehension, she wondered is the distant angry voices drifting in to her meant she was again about ton experience that transcendent ending: death.

There was absolutely nothing she could do about it if she was.

While she didn't remember dying, Courtney dimly recalled, at some later point, solemn whispers saying that she had, saying death had taken her, but that he had pressed his mouth over hers and filled her stilled lungs with his breath, his life, and in so doing had rekindled hers. She had had no idea who it was that spoke of such an inconceivable feat, or who "he" was.

That first night, when she had perceived the distant, disembodied voices as little more than vague notion, she had grasped that there were people around her who didn't believe, even though she was again living, that she would remain alive through the rest of the night. But now she knew she had; she had remained alive many more nights, perhaps in answer to desperate prayers and earnest oaths whispered over her that first night.

But if she didn't remember dying, she remembered the pain before passing into that great oblivion. The pain, she never forgot. She remembered fighting alone savagely against all those people, people bearing their teeth like a pack of wild hounds with a hare. She remembered the rain of blows driving her to the ground, the heavy boots slamming into her once she was there, and the sharp snap of bones.

She remembered the blood, so much blood... on their fists. On their boots. She remembered the searing terror of having no breath to gasp at the agony, no breath to cry out against the crushing weight of hurt..

Sometime after-whether hours or days, she didn't know- when she was lying under clean sheets in an unfamiliar bed and had looked up into his sky, yet icy blue, eyes, she knew that, for some, the world reserved pain worse than she had suffered.

She didn't know his name. The prfound anguish so apparent in his eyes told her beyond doubt that she should have. More than her own name, more than life itself, she knew she should have known his name, but she didn't. Nothing had ever shamed her more.

Thereafter, whenever her own eyes were closed, she saw his, saw not only the helpless suffering in them but also the light of such fierce hope as could only be kindled by righteous love. Love? She found herself wondering how that was possibly, even now. Somewhere though, even in the worst of the darkness blanketing her mind, she refused to let the light in his eyes be extinguished by her failure to will herself to live.

At some point, she remembered his name. Most of the time she remembered it. Sometimes, she didn't. Sometimes, when pain smothered her, she forgot even her own name.

Now, as Courtney heard a few voices-a few men, one she somehow recognized as a man she had once called Chef, another a man called Chris, and she found herself pondering the dark thing that was a secret to her, something she knew beyond a doubt connected those two names and her, and she heard even a few female voices as well-growling his name, she knew it, she knew him. With tenacious resolution she clung to that name-Duncan-and her memory of him, of who he was, of everything he meant to her.

Even later, when people had feared she would yet die, she knew she would live. She had to, for Duncan, even if she sometimes regretted admitting how much he meant to her.

When she finally willed her eyes to slide open, she squinted against the agony that had been tempered, if not banished, while in the cocoon of sleep. She was greeted by a blush of amber light filling the small room around her. Since the light wasn't bright, she reasoned that there must be a covering over a window muting the sunlight, or maybe the bulb in the lamp was going dead, Chris always was cheep when it came to some things.

Whenever she woke, as now, she not only had no sense of time, but no sense of how long she had been asleep.

She worked her tongue against the pasty dryness in her mouth. Her body felt leaden with thick, lingering slumber. She was as nauseated as the time when she was little and had devoured three candy green apples covered in caramel before going on the tilt-a-whirl with her older brother. She was sweating, that much she could tell over the ringing waves of pain that rippled against her every nerve cell as she lay still.

She struggled to rouse herself fully, but her awakening awareness seemed adrift, bobbing in a vast shadowy sea. Her stomach roiled. She suddenly had to put all her mental effort into not throwing up. She knew all too well that in her present condition, few things hurt more than vomiting.

Slowly, her eyes focused to the place above her, and she felt herself flinch as her eyes met with two equally dark ones. The face hovering above hers held a malicious smile, along with a pale complexion, and a head of raven black hair. Courtney didn't need to struggle too hard to place a name on that face: Heather.

She opened her mouth, deeply intent on spewing venom laced words at her, and tried to move a little in order to attempt to strangle the raven haired witch, but found herself coping with another wave of pain spiraling down her spine and reaching every possible nerve in her body.

She tried not to choke on her breath, and succeeded after a few moments, relaxing silently back onto the bed under her. Heather's laughter was what made Courtney's eyes glare daggers over at her, she wished with everything in her being that she could move freely right now, without hurting.

There was no telling what she was going to do if she could move, but the implications are pretty easy to figure out.

Slowly, carefully, so as not to twist what felt like double-edged daggers skewered here and there between her ribs, she drew a deeper breath. The fragrance of balsam and pine filled her lungs and helped ease her stomach, but not her guard, oh no. She could never relax her guard around Heather ever again.

Thankfully, Duncan lifted the blanket that worked as a sort of door to the infirmary place she was in, and, glaring his own daggers at Heather, moved to the side of Courtney's bed, his eyes softening when they found hers. "You're awake," he spoke gently, tenderly, and she had to resist the urge to snap at him, she was never to be treated like a weak puppy, it always irked her.

But considering how weak she really was right now, she allowed him to speak like that, and to sit on the edge of her bed, trying not to cringe as yet more waves of pain emitted through her side.

She tried so hard, in that moment, to stay awake. She wanted to hear his voice again, since it always relaxed her. She wanted to tell him she was sorry, for whatever reason she felt she had to, and she wanted above all else just to be able to let everything go for him, but she couldn't. The shackles of death threatening to bind her forever away from him were still there, and so instead she gave what she thought was a slight smile, then slipped into another lull of sleep.

_**Duncan's POV-ish:**_

**(BTW, this is like back before Courtney semi wakes up, it's right after Chris tells them it was Courtney that got beat up real bad) **

He didn't remember what happened after Chris uttered those three words, he just remembers feeling so... broken inside.

He did remember, however, the one word that kept rushing through his head every six second: _No._

Yet, eventually he was lulled into the realization that it was her. His heart ached, his palms were sweating, and his mind was spinning. He remembered Geoff saying things to him, but he couldn't remember the words, and he remembered Bridgette crying.

Yet somehow, here he was, the first allowed in the infirmary. He could just barely contain the tears threatening to spill over, yes, _tears. __**(he's not TOTALLY made of stone xD) **_He's watching her face, it's so contorted he doesn't know where skin ends and bruises begin. Her eyes were nearly swollen completely shut, her whole face puffy and purple and black and blue, he could just barely detect her eyelashes and eyelids in all that.

He couldn't see the rest of her, but he knew it must be nearly as bad as her face. Her left arm was in a splint, her right arm bandaged all over, with a few specks of blood adorning the white surface. Her hair lay in clumps around her head, and she was out cold.

He's now standing at the edge of the bed, on the right side, his hands jerking back every time he tries to touch her, his lip is trembling so slightly, and he bites it to stop it, he knows he can't break down now. He has to be strong for Courtney.

Yet he's so afraid.

For once in a long time, Duncan was afraid. Terribly, deathly afraid.

Because she just looked so... fragile in that bed, and as much as he kept imagining it would be ok if he just held her hand, he was so afraid he might... _break _her. He knew in the back of his mind that that wasn't possible, that he'd never even _dream _of hurting her, but he was still wary.

He slowly, and very delicately I might add, placed his right hand over hers, and he twitched slightly when he shifted a tiny bit, her fingers clenching around his slightly.

And even if she wasn't awake, that slight gesture was enough for him to know that as scared as he was right now, everything was going to be alright.

_**Oh dear, 'nother cliffy xD**_

_**gah, once again sorry it took so long, I had lots goin on 0.o**_

_**anyways,I almost cried writing this again.**_

_**And for those of you who did too I'm sorry D:**_

_**but yea, next chapter should be coming soon 0.o**_

_**and whoever replies gets some chocolate and a stuffed animal of your fav. Character of the series,**_

_**I love you all D: not in the stalker way I swear!**_

_**~bellsbells**_


	3. I Need Your Opinion! and preview!

_**OK guys, I need your opinion, badly.**_

**_For shattered, I originally was going to go for a full story containing how Courtney slowly gets better and gets revenge on Heather_**

**_BUT, I just watched TDWT episode 14 where Courtney finds out about Duncan and Gwen's kiss, and the look on Duncan's face..._**

**_I saw right through him and I saw things I really didn't want to see._**

**_Then I watched TDWT 16 cuz I couldn't get episode 15 part 2 to work... and I saw Duncan's alliance with Alejandro to _**

**_throw off team Amazon._**

**_And now, I got this idea, what if I finished this, then made a second story on it? Where it explains how COURTNEY'S been shattered._**

**_Since this story was Duncan being shattered... so yea_**

**_tell me what you thinkkkk!_**

**_please D: I'm already working on the first chapter... x.x_**

**_so whichever way you guys choose will create my choice, and whoever gives their opinion gets some chocolate and such, and hugs! _**

**_and you can beat up Duncan if you want, or hug him too or hug ur fav character_**

**_ANYWAYS_**

**_reviewww me lovessss_**

**_~bells_**

**_(P.s: I think this is really pathetic, and idk why I'm sharing it with you but I started crying because of Duncan. And I want to murder him and Gwen._**

**_But... I can't._**

**_Sad face npw: D:) _**

**_OH AND HERE'S A SNEAK PEEK OF MY IMPENDING WORK ON COURTNEY'S SHATTERED:_**

_**Courtney-ish POV:**_

As she looked at him, her vision weary, for once, her guard taken down, misplaced, she saw it in those eyes. Those achingly, beautiful teal blue eyes that had once stared at her with so much affection behind closed doors.

Those eyes that she now realized always had held a mask. A mask unlike hers, for her mask, which was carefully tweaked and strained and fit so snugly on her face now whenever she chose to hide from people, was still only half filled in. But his, oh but his, was full and smooth, it escaped her how for so long she had never noticed that simple masked lining, that cover.

That fake presence that had always been there, but she had never noticed until now. Until it was too late.

Now, she saw through that mask, and into the real Duncan, the Duncan she had thought about so many nights when they were apart the one she had ached for, the one she had worried for when he was gone this season, that Duncan was his mask.

And when she saw through it, she realized everything in that one moment. That achingly long, horrible moment of him staring at her as she stared back at him, his fingers laced through Gwens, and the only thing that came to her mind, then, were three, soft, yet somehow dagger tipped words that immediately ripped at her heart.

She spoke those words slowly, testing them almost, yet so much pain laced them, she could already feel her own mask chipping, her strong side weakening as she whispered,

"You used me."

_**So whatcha guys think? Love it? hate it? tell meee, because I **_

**_really wanna know if you want me to make a second story_**

**_I love you all! ~keeps Duncan tied up and as far away from Gwen as I write this~_**

**_hehe _**

**_~bells_**


	4. My decision!

_**Yay you guys chose for me to make a sequel!**_

**_Sooo I will ;D and this story will become complete 0.o _**

**_and plus, I just got finished writing the first chapter for the sequel, so ima post it now!_**

**_I love you guys! tell me what you think of the sequel when you read it, i hope you like it... x.x_**

**_and my apologies if Courtney sounds off o.o_**

**_I tried xD_**

**_~bellzy_**


End file.
